CSBG Archive

You Decide ’09 – Week 1 Results!

Each day in October I’ll give you folks a poll question. Each poll will last four days. The results will be posted every Tuesday leading up to (and ending with) Election Day on the first Tuesday in November. Here is the master list of all questions asked so far!

And here are the first poll results!

Enjoy!

Out of a whopping 1,335 replies to the question:

What are your thoughts on Superman being married to Lois Lane and Spider-Man no longer being married to Mary Jane Watson?

You decided that:

58% liked it better when both characters were married

18% like Superman married but prefer Spider-Man unmarried

13% would prefer they both be unmarried, and

12% would like Spider-Man married but Superman unmarried.
_______________________________________________________________________________

FlashJ

Mary Warner

I’m not surprised that Batman is beating Spider-Man, but how could he be that far ahead? That’s more than twice as many votes!
This just proves my theory that this website is too overloaded with DC fans.

David Hackett

Brian Cronin

Vote early, vote often? Are there really that many visitors to CSBG? Not at all calling the results into question, but I never imagined there were so many lurkers here.

These tallies represent only a small fraction of the daily readership of the blog, actually. Lurkers don’t typically post (obviously, or else they wouldn’t be lurkers), but they’re more likely to vote in polls, because all you have to do is click a button.

Ted

The Mutt

Nice to see Batman and Spidey beat out the more celebrated Flash rogues, because the Flash rogues are all really the same guy. Bank robbers with gimmicks. Batman’s Rogues should win just for Two-Face alone.

I don’t have a problem with superheroes being married per se, but I grew up with the LL love quadrangle, and I miss Lana and Lori. And it was much more fun when Peter was juggling Betty and Gwen and Mary Jane.

Ralph and Sue. Kent and Inza. Jay and Joan. Those are marriages that work.

David

benday-dot

I, am in 18% for the first poll… definitely: Supes, and Spidey should be single. It makes for way better tension in the stories. Those Silver Age Lois.vs. Lana vs. Lori… were the goodness of a quarter century of Superman comics. I was in the 25% for the second poll, but I was pretty close to picking Batman rogues. I just have a longer reading relationship with Spider-Man villains.

Carlo

I think the Superman stories have only benefitted by having him attached to one woman. Most previous stories, especially ones with Lana as the competition seemed like super-powered Archie-comics dilemmas.
Think about Superman Beyond 3-D, or the issue where Superman and Wonder Woman were trapped in a war dimension for a thousand years. Or even the climax of DC 1,000,000. All fun stories.
Lois and Clark are both independent and strong enough as characters in their own right but really click when they’re together.
Writers for Spider-Man and MJ never figured out that they needed to make her as compelling as Peter Parker for the marriage to work long-term.

Plus all those lois vs lana stories feature super-man being a dick, and while that kind of thing makes for a funny website, I really don’t like the idea of `superman’ being mean and selfish. It just doesn’t add up.

Anyways the resutls (including the %s) don’t surprise me in the slightest.

There’s that, but also, unlike Spiderman, there was only ever one girl on the plate for Superman, so why not have him be married?

Have you ever read the message boards at Kryptonsite, FGJ?

There are passionate advocates for Lana, Lois and even Chloe Sullivan. It is real enthusiasm from people who do not ordinarily read comics. For some reason, the 70,000 of us who read Superman comics are supposed to have no interest in recruiting some percentage of the 7 million folks that watch SMALLVILLE. I don’t get it.

Mike Loughlin

While I don’t have any vested interest in Spider-Man or Superman being married, I think marriage suits Superman better than Spider-Man. Superman is older, more mature, on more solid ground professionally and within the super-hero community. Spider-Man is neurotic, a freelancer who always has money problems, not as universally trusted by his peers, and kind of immature. I see Superman as being able to settle down if he wants, while Spider-Man would have a problem getting over himself enough to commit.

These the decades where he was number 1, or the decades where he was lagging behind so they decided to relaunch?

During the Sixties, five of the five top sellers were often Superman titles. Fully half those stories dealt with the romantic life of the Man of Steel, or some member of his cast. It was not the Soap Opera style for which Spider-Man became famous, but there was also no small amount of Freudian symbolism.

In contrast, the early 80s title that prompted the re-boot had dumped the love triangle aspect years before. Not that proves anything, but it is interesting.

Omega

Batman having the best Rogues makes the alot of sense. Spidey has alot of good bad guys and should be 2nd on this list but after his villians Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Hobgoblin, Venom, Sandman, and Electro the rest aren’t all that formidable compared to Batmans 2nd tier villians. When you look at Batmans top tier villians you have tons: Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Bane, Scarecrow, Ra’s al Ghul, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman are all heavyweights and can take Batman on alone. Rhino, Scorpian, Vulture, Tombstone, Lizard, Shocker, Hydro-Man, Mysterio, and Chameleon aren’t bad villians but 90% of the time they have to team-up to stand a chance againest Spidey. Ironicly Batman’s villians get get physically stronger(most of them) as you go down the list which says his top tier bad guys have good development. Batman has alot of superpowered 2nd tier bad guys like Clayface, Killer Croc, Man-Bat, Doc Phosphorus, Blockbuster, and Killer Moth then he has some lower level bad guys who are more like his top tier rogues like Hush, Mad-Hatter, Black Mask, Red Hood, Anarchy, Ventriloquist, Mr, Zsasz, Firefly, Hugo Strange, Cluemaster, and Deadshot. It’s really the quality vs. quantity argument. I think Batman has more A-list villians and better A-list villians. Spidey has more B and C-list villians but I think Bats has better B to C-list villians. I’ll take Killer Croc over Lizard or Clayface over Chameleon any day…that’s just me. There can be no argument tho that Spider-Man and Batman easily have the best rogue galleries in their respective companies.

bad_trotsky

Michael

I don’t particularly care about Superman’s marriage, because he’s going to be with Lois one way or another, but I think that, if DC went ahead and did it, then they should just play the “Yes” and not jump through some inane hoops to undo it just so the oldcore creators and fans can have it their way.

dl316bh

Wow. Fifty eight percent wanted both married. That surprises me, because I grew up in the Spidey marriage era but when I went back to read the stories most of them were ****ing terrible. I guess this kind of proves my thought that some fans just care more about marital status of a character than quality of the stories.

Go figure. Oh well. Not like I have to worry about it coming back. If it did, I wouldn’t even bother picking it up in trade anymore. I could do without more melodramatic, mopey, bland marriage era stories. Hell, the undoing of the marriage is part of what got me even dealing with Marvel again after being driven away almost entirely by the saturation of events and tie-ins. Usually I’m a DC guy front and foremost.

"O" the Humanatee!

What I find frustrating about the married/unmarried poll is that some people voted as if the question was “Did you like it better when they were unmarried than when they were married?” (a question about the past), others voted as if the question was “How do you feel about the changes you imagine writers would take to undo their current marital status?” (a question about an imagined future, and which seemed to pertain more to Superman, since OMD has already messed with people’s opinions about Spider-Man), and still others appear to have taken it to mean “Which do you think is more consistent with the character’s concept or personality: being married or being single?” These polls are unscientific enough without there being such leeway in interpretation. (Yeah, I know the polls are just for fun….)

dieter nagy

A good writer could write good stories regardless of wether Spidey (or SUpes for that fact) is married or not. Since for many fans MJ’s and Pete’s marriage was a given (and a loved one at that), it was kind of cheap to change it this way, basically saying no-one could write good stories with a married Spider-Man.

So, dl316bh, JMS wrote boring stories, J.M. Dematteis wrote boring stories, Paul Jenkins nad Robert Aguirre did?
I tend to think a lot of people disagree with you on that.

I think they just like character progression.
It’s not their fault that the writers refused to tell different stories with the characters, stubbornly refusing to change the format despite the change.

FGJ, some of us do not think that it is the fault of the writer. Comics just do not do character progression very well. That is more a TV thing. The most idiot-proof Golden Age superhero has got to be Batman and his status quo has never changed for very long. The least idiot-proof of the same generation is Aquaman, who had dozens of “character progressions” (marriage, baby, death of same, divorce, loss of his kingdom and etc.).

Rene

I like Spider-Man’s current stories a lot better than what has been done with the character in the last 10 years (or even 20 years). But I can see both sides of the controversy. Some people say that there is very little in the post-OMD stories that couldn’t have been done with a married Spidey. Perhaps. But I can see Quesada’s point too, when a story has to end with “and then he returned home to his supermodel wife,” any dramatic tension generated is dilluted.

Anyway, I’m of the oppinion that they should just have divorced Spidey and MJ.

As for Superman, I don’t really care one way or the other. I agree that Lois Lane not knowing Superman is Clark is stale and ridiculous and irritating, though.

FunkyGreenJerusalem

Having just watched the first Superman film for the first time last night, I gots ta thinking.
When I was very young I saw Superman 4 at the cinema, and 2 & 3 on telly, but they’d already started showing their age (3 & 4 being particularly cheap films).
So I don’t relate to those films the way some do, nor did I have the 70’s animations or the Reeves serial.
For better or for worse, the Superman I had at around age ten was Lois And Clark Superman.
Therefore to me, and I’m guessing others around my age, there really was only Lois for him, and her knowing who he is, and them getting married just doesn’t seem that far out of the norm.

FGJ, some of us do not think that it is the fault of the writer.

Except that some writers make things work, and others just try and ignore them.

Comics just do not do character progression very well.

You’re jut inviting T to come tell us about DBZ you realise!

The most idiot-proof Golden Age superhero has got to be Batman and his status quo has never changed for very long.

His genre has changed though, several times.

Ted

For better or for worse, the Superman I had at around age ten was Lois And Clark Superman.

I’d never thought of that before, but it makes sense. I’m a bit younger than you, I wasn’t even around for the Superman movies, so Lois And Clark Superman may have even been the first time I’d even heard of Superman.

I’m not sure, though, that you are right about character progression. Maybe that’s some of the reason, but I wonder if it has more to do with wish fulfilment (the nerd’s ultimate dream is to have the hot, understanding wife, getting most of the benefits of being a ladies man without having to talk to a lot of strangers) and avoiding soap opera (because if they’re in a stable relationship there doesn’t need to be any soap, and while I don’t think that most comics readers have an aversion to romance per se, I don’t think they like soap very much either).

benday-dot

Plus all those lois vs lana stories feature super-man being a dick, and while that kind of thing makes for a funny website, I really don’t like the idea of `superman’ being mean and selfish. It just doesn’t add up.

A lot of that superdickery was actually just a product of selling a comic through the cover. Once you take a peak inside, and accepting of fun shenanigans, Superman pretty much stands tall as the heroic and selfless guy you want..

Rene

Soap opera has been an established part of the superhero genre for 40 years now. So I would dispute the idea that most comic readers don’t like soap opera.

I’m not sure the hardcore fan’s support of the Spider-marriage is due to nerdy wish-fulfilment either. IMO, it’s more a strong aversion to retconning plus the preference for “stuff to continue as it was when I started reading comics.”

I confess I’m guilty of that myself. I started reading Spider-Man before the wedding, and the stories I most like are the ones featuring a single Peter Parker, so I have not much trouble seeing the wedding dissolved.

Ted

Soap opera has been an established part of the superhero genre for 40 years now.

Absolutely it was a part of the superhero genre, I wouldn’t say that there was always a dislike of soap opera, but is it still a part of the superhero genre? There was a time when every comic had the possible lover, or lovers, and the will they/won’t they thing happening. That certainly isn’t the case anymore. And this vote tells me 58% of people seem to not want to go back to those stories.

“Once you take a peak inside, and accepting of fun shenanigans, Superman pretty much stands tall as the heroic and selfless guy you want.”

Right, if you ignore how he never tackles war, hunger, disease, pollution, racism, or any other real-world problem. (And I’ve read the few stories where he tried to tackle these problems, so don’t bother listing them.)

“The Year One vs Born Again one looks like it could be close.”

Looks to me like it could be 60-40 or 70-30 for Born Again…i.e., another landslide.

benday-dot

Right, if you ignore how he never tackles war, hunger, disease, pollution, racism, or any other real-world problem. (And I’ve read the few stories where he tried to tackle these problems, so don’t bother listing them.)

Oh, I wouldn’t bother doing that. You are right it’s a few stories indeed. Really, leaving aside somebody like Concrete, what mainstream superhero, actually does making it his/her life’s mission to tackle those problems. It”s just not what being a Marvel or DC superhero is about. And it wasn’t my point in defending Superman or the rest of the DC gang against charges of profound superhero dickery.

I was simply suggesting that those Silver Age covers really were meant to be provocative and sell the book rather than tell the whole truth. Yes, like I said there were shenanigans, which suggested Superman was about to kill Lois, or allow Jimmy Olsen to marry a monkey, but you know as well as I do these things never were truly meant to be. It was all in the nature of classic comedic misunderstanding.

DC never has allowed their brand characters to be “dicks” by nature, as the original poster suggested. Everything gets straightened out. Superman remains a hero. In the SA the world goes on with a rather clear line between the good guys and the bad guys drawn. No moral relativism or grim n’ gritty yet.

Citizen Scribbler

I don’t know. My response in favor of both marriages is that I believe in growth and development for the character. But… why don’t we have our cake and eat it too? Why don’t we have one Superman on one Earth who’s married and another on another Earth who’s younger that isn’t? Everybody’s happy!

Look at the Flash for example- Jay was married to Joan and Barry was dating Iris. Barry marries Iris, dies, but Wally is single. Wally is married, but Bart is single. You don’t even NEED the different Earths, but that would help it work better, I think.